Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft Minori Ishida Deviating Voice. Representation of Female Characters and Feminist Readings in 1990s Anime 2019 https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16392 Veröffentlichungsversion / published version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Ishida, Minori: Deviating Voice. Representation of Female Characters and Feminist Readings in 1990s Anime. In: IMAGE. Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft. Special Issue of Issue 29, Jg. 15 (2019), Nr. 1, S. 22– 37. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16392. Erstmalig hier erschienen / Initial publication here: http://www.gib.uni-tuebingen.de/image/ausgaben-3?function=fnArticle&showArticle=517 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Deposit-Lizenz (Keine This document is made available under a Deposit License (No Weiterverbreitung - keine Bearbeitung) zur Verfügung gestellt. Redistribution - no modifications). 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In the following article, however, I am going to point out that there are always possibilities of deviation, because, fundamentally, the visual appearance and the voice of the character are created independently. This has, in fact, opened up the possibility to introduce a new style of charac- ters like Haruka Tenou, one of the most popular characters in the Sailor Moon series (1992–1997). According to Azuma Hiroki, moe (affective responses) to- ward characters had drastically altered the reception of anime in the 1990s, preparing the way for the so-called ›kyara-moe‹. Within otaku (fan) cultures, however, another kind of reception took place, which was inspired by female, queer characters, such as Haruka or her successors. Feminist audiences who experienced moe toward these characters interpreted them enthusiastically: with regard to the gender and the sexuality of the protagonists, they created their own narratives. Introduction From birth to death, we are enclosed within our given bodies. Even though we are able to modify our bodies to some extent, we are soon confronted with IMAGE | Issue 29 | Special Issue Recontextualizing Characters | 01/2019 22 Minori Ishida 石田美紀: Deviating Voice their limitations. In contrast to us, anime characters are created and modified according to will. Characters are artificial beings. Various opinions have been expressed with regard to their artificiality, which remains the core feature of fictional beings. Most existing studies, including Azuma Hiroki’s theory of ›da- tabase consumption‹ (which I will examine later), have focused on the visual aspects of animated characters. However, considering only visual aspects is not enough to understand how characters are constructed and represented in animated works. Since animation must be understood as an audio-visual me- dium, most of its characters are also given a voice, which plays an important role in animation. If a character’s voice suddenly changes, for instance, we do not think that he or she is the same person we have come to know before. Therefore, an identical voice is usually necessary for the viewers to recognize coherent characters in animation. This article explores the role of voice in animation on the one hand, by analyzing the ways in which it supports character design, as well as the rela- tionship between visual elements and characters’ voices on the other. To this end, I choose—from the vast area of animation—Japanese TV anime series from the 1990s as a site for the following discussion. In the history of anime, the decade of the 1990s is considered to be of paramount importance. In 1963, when televised anime series became popular with the introduction of Tetsu- wan Atomu (Astro Boy), this new genre was perceived strictly as entertainment for children. However, as the anime industry started developing a variety of narratives, the age of the audience expanded. In the 1990s, TV anime series had long reached a young adult audience. In response to the expanded audi- ence, many influential masterpieces targeting young adults were produced, such as Kōkaku Kidōtai (Ghost in the Shell, 1995), Shin Seiki Evangerion (Neon Genesis EVANGELION, 1995–1996), Cowboy Bebop (1998), and many more. By recalling these titles, we can easily recognize that anime was already ›mature‹ as a young-adult genre in the 1990s. Moreover, with regard to audience reception, an outstanding phenom- enon occurred in the 1990s: the young-adult audience became deeply and in- tensely fascinated with anime characters. This attitude revealed a new ten- dency of increased social anime acceptance: the otaku subculture had emerged. So-called ›otaku‹ (devoted fans) began to describe their feelings, which even included sexual desires toward anime characters, with the term ›moe 萌え‹: an intense affective response toward fictional characters. Thus, firmly embedded within various social practices, anime reached its maturity through the public’s fascination with characters. Of course, both with regard to the character and the audience, moe can be evoked regardless of genre. None- theless, the discourse on moe is almost exclusively centered around the recep- tion of female characters by male audiences, as is the case within Azuma’s theory of database consumption (AZUMA 2009). These contexts make us aware of two overlooked issues with regard to female anime characters in the 1990s. One is the contribution of voice to char- acter design. As was already mentioned, anime characters are not only visual IMAGE | Issue 29 | Special Issue Recontextualizing Characters | 01/2019 23 Minori Ishida 石田美紀: Deviating Voice entities. Hence, questions with regard to the relationship between their visual elements and their voices arise. In fact, female anime characters exhibit inter- esting varieties of vocal expression. Another overlooked issue is the reception of female anime characters by female audiences. According to existing studies, otaku have mostly been assumed to be male. However, there is actually a large portion of enthusiastic female fans within anime audiences, which indicates that female fans can also be considered ›otaku‹. The reception of female anime characters by female audiences, and whether this reception is different to male reception, is a research subject that deserves closer attention. To investigate these two issues, I am first going to consider the ›voice database‹ for character designs and re-evaluate the concept of ›database con- sumption‹ proposed by Azuma. Second, I am going to analyze the female char- acters from the Sailor Moon series (1992–1997), a representative anime show from the 1990s, by focusing on the relationships between their visual elements and their voices. Third, I will demonstrate that there was a positive reception of female anime characters by their female audiences in the 1990s. I will dis- cuss readings relevant to the artificial and even queer relationships between visual elements and voices in the design of anime characters. Moe and Database Consumption In 2001, cultural critic and philosopher Azuma Hiroki published Otaku. Japan’s Database Animals (the English translation referenced in this article was re- leased in 2009). In this book, Azuma analyzed the close relationship between moe and what he coined ›the database‹. According to the author, characters in the 1990s were rapidly rising to prominence within otaku culture; a social ›da- tabase‹ of shared assumption and conventions could be identified as a re- source for recurring moe-elements, mediated by anime characters. Otaku strongly demand the experience of moe from their reception of fictional char- acters. Therefore, the narratives to which the characters belong became less and less important. Consequently, only the database is relevant, and otaku- desire seeks out works that function like a database themselves, which allow fans to abstract idealized moe-elements most efficiently. Azuma named this new kind of reception »database consumption« (AZUMA 2009: 47).